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While walking around the airport to pass the time before the flight, Leonard came across a life-size reproduction of the first powered, controlled flying machine to ever take to the skies.  The first man to ever fly did so in one of these right there, he thought.  As he inspected the light wooden frame, cloth, and the steel and aluminum engine, the plane began to rotate toward the nearest wall of windows.  The wheels started turning and the plane rolled faster and faster down a runway that appeared where the terminals used to be.  As it lifted off and kept rising, history unfolded below it.  Weatherview’s main street from over a hundred years ago surrounded Leonard, complete with crowds of people walking past the original buildings of the city, or driving past in some of the first cars ever to be mass-produced.  The cars drove alongside horse-drawn carriages and people on horseback.  The spirit of industry sang low bass notes throughout a city riding the wave of the Industrial Revolution.  None of the pictures Leonard had seen did it justice.  You had to be there to feel the power of a nation on the move toward a newer, higher world.  The planes would fly on, the buildings would grow taller, and the minds would be enlightened.  Just in time for the end, he thought.

Leonard made eye contact with a man on the sidewalk and immediately felt a jolt of self-consciousness.  In a moment he stood back in the airport as the past faded away.

“The signs and wonders haven’t ceased yet,” he said to his wife when he got back to their seats outside the gate.

“Did you see angels?” she asked.

“I see angels right here.”  He gave his children some candy.  “We are living history.  Every minute of every hour of every day we are living in the most important time of all.  Thousands of years of earlier generations led up to this, to you and me and the kids right here, right now.  All the people who lived before us, they’ll rise into heaven just like some of us will, but everything they accomplished by surviving and striving and not giving up, all of that fits together like a vast pair of wings, with every generation a feather fanned out and working together to make our world soar into heaven, to become heaven.”

Nia had begun to cry a little.  He gently wiped the tears away.  “I want our babies to have everything we didn’t,” she said.

“They will, they’ll have more than we had, everything they need.”

“We’ll be okay, Mama.  Why are you crying?” asked Jasmine.

“It’s a good cry, sweetheart.  It’s going to be so perfect, just wait and see.”

“I know it is.”

“You have to be good to get into heaven, kids, remember that.  Don’t let all these miracles make you think you’re already in.”

“As lighting flashes across the sky, from one end to the other, so shall Jesus be when he returns,” added Nia.

“Yes, sir.  Yes, ma’am,” they said, returning to their games and books.

Nia and the children slept on the flight to Los Angeles, giving Leonard time to think about what he’s seen.  The energy of the Industrial Revolution had empowered him.  He felt a hope, almost an ambition, that he’d never felt before.  He wanted to see a new world, not like the one the Forefathers founded but the New Earth of the next age.  What would it be like? he couldn’t help but wonder.  I’ll be lucky if I don’t end up in the lake of fire, he thought, forcing paradise out of his head.

Having brought his guitar and mobile amplifier to one of the busiest places in the city, Elliott proceeded to remove the guitar from its case, plug it into the amp, and wail at full volume.  He had definitely broken free of his plateau and risen to a higher skill level.  He could express himself through the guitar now, like his arms and hands were power lines from his heart to the instrument.  Finally he could play like his idols could play.  Now he was almost ready to record an album.

Some kids from school approached him.

“What’s up, Elliott?”

“Hey, Elliott,” they said.

“That was indeed the best party ever.  Indeed, sir.  Except for the fact that our parents were there,” said one of them.

“That was the point,” said another, “to bring all of us together at school and let the healing begin.  Isn’t that right, Elliott?”

“Indeed, it is.  I wanted to put the dropper thing behind us.  Kids should graduate high school at least, even if robots are taking over the job market.”

They laughed.  “We can do the robot jobs better than they can.  We just have to John Henry them to prove it.  Maybe then they’ll let us drop out.”

“Who’s John Henry?”

“Are you serious?” asked Elliott.  “I heard the story a million times growing up.”

“Legend has it, John Henry was a steel-drivin’ man.  Laid railroad tracks he did.”

“So what?”

“So they were bringing in a newly engineered steam-powered machine that could drive railroad ties at record speed.  When the companies tried to replace human labor with machines, John Henry challenged their machine to a race.  He took a sledge hammer in each hand and gave it his all.  He beat the machine and afterward he was so exhausted that he died, right then and there, victorious.”

“Now old John Henry was a hero,” said Elliott.